“The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”
– 1 Timothy 1:5
I love verses like this that just offer a clear outline of how to pray for our lives or other people’s lives around us. It’s just laid out for us 1 Timothy 1:5. To pray for love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere your faith and just meditate on each of those things. Don’t you want your life to be marked by love, by unselfish care, compassion, affection, desire for the good of others, commitment to the good of others, love that issues from a pure heart? Don’t you want a pure heart? Not an impure heart, but a heart that is pure in motive and thought and desire.
Explaining What a Good Conscience Is
Pure heart, a good conscience. Don’t we want a good conscience before God? A conscience that’s aligned with his word and his spirit and sincere faith. Not a fake faith, not a fraudulent faith, not even a weak faith, but a full, sincere, genuine, deep faith. So can we just pray that over each other right now, over each of our lives? God, we want these things that we see in your word. We pray for these things in our lives. We pray for these things in others lives around us, God, as we think about family members, friends, other brothers and sisters in Christ. Maybe people we’re in disciple, making relationships with, for people in our churches, our co-laborers together in the gospel.
1 Timothy 1:5 Asks God for Love
God, we pray for love in our lives. God, we pray for love for you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Give us wholehearted love for you and selfless love for others. God, we pray for Christ-like love in us. And God, we pray for pure hearts. God, purify our hearts, purify our desires, our thoughts, our motives, our deeds, everything, God.
The heart, the seat of who we are. We pray for purity at the core of who we are. Remove impurity from us. We pray for pure hearts. God, give us good consciences. Please, oh God, align our consciences with your word and your spirit that we might live, that we might think in a way that glorifies you, that we might think in a way that honors you, that we might make decisions and use our words in ways that are glorifying to you, in ways that align with your word and follow the leadership of your spirit.
1 Timothy 1:5 Prays for Sincere Faith
God, we pray for good consciences and God, we pray for sincere faith. Oh God, help our unbelief, help our faith to grow today. God, we pray for deeper faith, for truer faith, for faith that flows into works like we read about in James. God, we don’t want to have a faith that says, “Go, I wish you well. Keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about other people’s physical needs. God, we pray for faith that works, for a genuine faith that flows into love for others and sacrificial care for others and giving to others, God, for faith that flows into obedience to your word.
Led to Pray for the Hani People
Oh God, may all of these things be ever-increasing in our lives. May we grow today. God, I pray for this for my life, for every single person who’s listening right now. Help us to grow in love. God, purify our hearts today, we pray. We pray for good conscience today. Help us to live in step with your spirit and your word that we might lay our head on our pillow tonight with a good conscience before you. And God, we pray for sincere faith. And we pray that you would help us to share that faith with others, that they might experience your love, that they might experience your power to purify their heart, and that they might have a conscience aligned with your word and your spirit. That they might come to faith in Jesus.
We pray this for people around us today. We pray this for the Hani people of East Asia, close to a million of them, most of whom have little to no knowledge of Jesus. God, we pray you help us to love them. Well, here are prayers for the Hani people right now. We pray that you would help us to reach them as your church with the good news of your grace. God, we pray all of these things according to your word in 1 Timothy 1:5. In Jesus’ name, we pray for love, pure hearts, good consciences and sincere faith. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
